Know Me? No! Me! #11
Question: What’s the craziest thing about 2021 for you?
Hey! I’m Saish and this is Know Me? No! Me! – a newsletter where I talk about everything under the sun or more specifically all the interesting tidbits of knowledge that tickles my neurons every so often when I consume content. I aim to facilitate an exchange of learning between you and me through my writing.
I will try to share my learnings by sharing articles, podcast episodes, some Netflix series and many thought-provoking pieces I encounter. I send this package to an intimate group of individuals and I talk about subjects varying from entrepreneurship, design, art, music and all the way to philosophy.
In a nutshell, this is an adventure through time and the spacebar, as I take you with me in my quest to understand the fabric of the world.
If you are ready for this trip, all you need is to enter your email or better still, bring a companion with you!
On Clubhouse 🏠
If you haven't been living under a rock, or if you're in the countryside with no internet (in which case you can't be reading this 😉) you've probably heard about quite a few things that have taken 2021 by storm since I last wrote to you, Clubhouse is one of them.
What is Clubhouse though?
Clubhouse is an invitation-only audio-chat social networking app that is currently only available on iOS devices and started off with most of the early members being from the Silicon Valley VC community and has grown to almost 6 million users as of January 2021.
You basically have rooms that you can create and that people can join into while you're talking on the stage. People can raise their hands to interact with you on the stage and add to the discussion. Another concept of CH is that there are clubs that talk about specific topics and you need to be invited to be a member to them. Once you're in the club, you can create rooms that will then only be visible to the people inside the club.
I got an invitation around the first week of January and have constantly been joining rooms and clubs. I've been using the app for almost a month now and have taken part in quite a few interesting discussions ranging from topics like design, art and entrepreneurship to mental health. I hosted a couple of rooms as well as having one of The Jellyfish Collective's first Fuck Around Fridays (FAF for the loved ones) where we discussed the importance of originality in design and what purpose design serves for companies, everyday people and designers as well.
The first room I hosted was about the creative industries and mental health as a lot of creatives work long hours, without paying a lot of heed to their own health be it mental or physical. I welcomed my friends as well as incredible creatives in their own right to talk about how it affects them and how do they overcome difficulties when it comes to their mental health and work.
I believe that Clubhouse can have a huge impact on creating safe spaces to have real conversations if they introduce better moderation and monetisation tools.
P.S. I may have invites with me so if you’re on iOS and haven’t gotten an invite yet, hit me up and I’ll invite you!
Today I Learned 💡
“If you want above average results, you have to say no to average opportunities.
If you spend all of your time chasing average opportunities, you’ll have no time for great ones. This applies to people, books, problems, etc.
Raise the bar.”
-Shane Parrish
I probably realized this fact a little too late as I’ve always been about starting from zero and helping as many people as possible and did not realise that if I don’t charge enough to keep myself and my team pushing through the most challenging of projects, I will definitely do a suboptimal job of it.
Bookworm Time 📖
“Luck is far more egalitarian than even intelligence. If people were rewarded strictly according to their abilities, things would still be unfair—people don’t choose their abilities. Randomness has the beneficial effect of reshuffling society’s cards, knocking down the big guy.” - extract from The Black Swan
I can never talk enough about the role luck plays in the creation of successes and it may seem like the easy explanation for everything, but more often than not you will find that the difference between the most successful people and the also-rans comes down to how lucky you were to have one aspect that blew you out of the water.
What I Consumed 🔗
Although I haven’t been reading much, I have been consuming some rich content in the form of Clubhouse discussions and talks. Nevertheless, here’s some of the content I consumed this month:
The Family’s new format, In Good Company has all the directors coming together to discuss startups, Twitter trends, and more. Very rich insights into the world of startups and investing.
YC’s President, Geoff Ralston spoke about the world famous accelerator going remote and what effect it has had with the cohorts joining in from all around the world. He was interviewed by Roxanne Varza, Director at Station F. Listen to the episode here.
Another episode from the Station F podcast that I listened to was Luciana Lixandru, Sequoia’s Europe Partner spoke about the VC firm opening its doors to Europe, taking an active role in investing in future European unicorns, and the Scout program that they run which unites operators, investors and founders to scout startups that have a massive potential for growth. Listen to the episode here.
I’m pretty much a regular listener of Matthieu Stefani’s Génération Do It Yourself which is a long-format podcast where he interviews French and European founders who have quite literally exploded the average human talent. This time, I listened to Ludovic Dujardin who is the co-founder of the meditation app, Petit BamBou talk about the importance of free will in this era of marketing trying to force our choices. Listen to the episode here.
Good Vibes 🌈
I’ll also be using this newsletter to give a shoutout to people, projects and businesses that inspire me and I hope that you are inspired by them as well by supporting them in any manner possible!
One of the projects I co-founded, Project Mysa tackles the problem of mental health in India and the need for emotional health education for kids in Indian schools. If you know any schools, teachers, mental health professionals that can help us push this project forward, get in touch with me 😁.
I must admit that I’ve never seen videos as cool as those made by my friend, Malavika Anupraj who was recently featured among 21 women in Indian design to look out for. Her Instagram handle is @ambotti and you won’t be disappointed to see her work.
Here’s a shoutout to my buds Ana Pomeroy and Marie-Andrice Mantot who are founders of Manzili Gallery, an art gallery in Paris empowering African artists to sell their art here in Europe and already have an incredible roster of talents. Keep your eyes out for them because they have their first exhibition coming up soon.
And finally, here’s a special mention for my friend Milena who has kept me motivated to keep writing this newsletter and you have her to thank 😁.
Let’s build each other up together.
With love, from Paris, 🇫🇷